820. Hyde Park, Lamoille County (VT05)

The foggy morning made for an interesting framing of the courthouse. No doubt, if it had been white, it would have been ethereal, pulled into the background. The red brick, on the other hand, popped out and made for a decent early morning shot. I could use this as a warning to the Future Arborists of America because of the tree obscuring the tower, but I’ll chalk this one up to me trying to be artsy, playing around with the trees in the fog. As I have mentioned before, I am most certainly not a photographer.

Our morning started off much earlier in Stowe, the Ski Capital of the East. Just like back in Wilmington, we had an early morning Event! Unlike back in Wilmington, I had the presence of mind to take pictures! We even had a couple of attendees in the persons of Snarfmon23 and TKDscouter! We talked a lot about the differences in caching between Vermont and Texas, with 4everlyn offering some insights about Arizona. I, on the other hand, had something far more important to accomplish.

Outside of the United States, a Yankee is someone from the US.
Inside the US, it means someone from the North.
In the North, it’s someone from New England.
In New England, it’s someone from Vermont.
And in Vermont, it means someone who has pie for breakfast.

So says E. B. White. Having consumed pie in Stowe, I had achieved the status of “Yankee” in the deepest, most esoteric meaning of the word.

Vermont, being the only state that does not currently have a county challenge, was probably good for us with the Event. A cache is a cache is a cache after all, but we had a physical cache on the itinerary, a Mystery that had already been solved, so we went ahead and got it, especially because it was themed to the nearby Trapp Family Lodge.

I seriously doubt there are any among you above a certain age (that age probably being ten) who haven’t seen The Sound of Music. When the real-life von Trapps left Austria, they ended up settling outside Stowe to run a ski lodge in mountains that reminded them of home, and the family runs it to this day.

We took our touristy detour, enjoyed the beauty of the place, and stumbled upon something unexpected that caught me a little off guard.

Ladies and gentlemen (or however you identify—I don’t mean to be gender assumptive), I give you the graves of the von Trapp Family. I feel I must make a confession. Despite their history as a singing group, I know nothing of their songbook. All I knew about them I learned from the movie. So I sang them Do-Re-Mi. It was all I had to offer, so I gave them what I had to give. I felt a little gauche about doing that, but I felt better learning that I was not alone. Another member of the fellowship gave them Edelweiss.

We switched around passengers, so I found myself rolling with Razorbackgirl and 4everlyn again. The entire fellowship, with our guest in tow, swung by the courthouse in Hyde Park, stopping to grab a cache across the street, then took separate routes to our next stop of the morning…